Child recovering after shots fired in Burlington

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BURLINGTON, N.C. -- A 2-year-old child is recovering after shots were fired in a Burlington neighborhood around 9:20 p.m. Monday.

The child is expected to be OK, but he's shaken up and so is the whole neighborhood. They're asking police to help them do something about the crime happening near Stone Street.

"A 2-year-old, it upset me real bad. I'm still not good with that," said Ronald Morrow, who lives across the street.

Police say a man fired several shots from a parking lot about a block over on Anthony Street.

The 2-year-old was sitting on his father's lap outside their home when the shooting happened.

Burlington police say it appears a .45 caliber bullet, or a fragment of the bullet, grazed the child's wrist. The 2-year-old started to cry and his father saw blood on the child's wrist. He went inside to call 911.

Witnesses say several other children were outside at the time of the shooting.

"It's very lucky that the 2-year-old was not hit or severely injured, or somebody else that was outside," said. Lt. Brett Currie, with the Burlington Police Department.

EMS treated the 2-year-old's wound at the scene. His family took him to the hospital on Tuesday once the wound started to bleed.

Police don't know if the suspect was targeting anyone at the homes on Stone Street of if the shooting was just random.

"In my experience, this is very unusual," Currie said. "I haven't run across a case since I've been here where a child was grazed by a bullet."

Neighbors like Morrow say they're not surprised to see it happen.

"I seen it come from a pretty good neighborhood to, it worsens, and you have to be careful about going outside and leaving anything unlocked," he said.

"Just like last night. This stuff is happening every which way. They're not always shootings, but there's a lot of fighting and stuff like that going on," Morrow added.

Morrow's right. Crime mapping data from LexisNexis shows dozens of responses to assaults in the neighborhood this summer.

"At all times in the summertime, in any of the warm weather, there's people walking up and down the road all times of the night trying to break in stuff," Morrow said.

Neighbors like Morrow want to see police step up patrols in his neighborhood all the time, not just after there's a crime.

He thinks that will help build trust with the neighborhood and encourage people to report what's going on.

"People are quiet because they're scared, you know," he said. "Well I don't like being scared and I'm not going to be quiet."

Police initially hoped surveillance video from a nearby business would show what happened. They told FOX8 on Tuesday afternoon that no surveillance video is available.

Anyone with information on this shooting is asked to call Burlington police at (336) 229-3503.